


Home Will Run With You

by hizziesmemori



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Dorks in Love, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Implied Anxiety, Implied/Referenced Abuse, John is a dork, Snow, Snowball Fight, bare with me here i get emotional, but he also loves emori, but so is emori, but very very little mention of abuse, dealing with anxiety/trauma, emori is scared of feelings, emori wont acknowledge her trauma, figuring out feelings, in their cave, john loves snow, like a lot, lowkey a character study of emori, mentions of murphys parents, set 3x02-3x05, snow fluff, spiky jacket !!!, theyre awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27746140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hizziesmemori/pseuds/hizziesmemori
Summary: “Otan loved snow. He used to say it was a gift for us from the sky.”She crushed the painful memories of her brother under the frozen leaves beneath her feet and twirled around to face John.“I don’t believe that anymore, though.”John met her eyes. “No?” he questioned teasingly. It was his turn to step closer now, just a little, just so that their body heat mingled in the bitter, frozen air.“No,” she repeated, reverting her eyes from his only to focus them on his lips for half a second. “The sky brought me a new gift.”-Emori and Murphy enjoy the snow outside of their cave and discover some feelings along the way.
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 26





	Home Will Run With You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is my first ever fic so go easy on me please.  
> More notes at the end, I hope you enjoy xx

_Home._

She swallowed around the foreign word, letting it burn a path down her throat and fall with a painful thud into her stomach. Emori speculated whether anyone truly has a home, or if they just trick themselves into believing they do so they don’t have to feel the lonely ache in their chest that she feels every day. 

The grass is soft between her toes, and the field stretches for miles in all directions. She briefly wonders how she got to this strange place, why the sky is more blue than it has been all month and where the trees and their cave went. She picks a direction and begins to walk, isolation not yet overtaking her but it’s looming and she tries to appreciate the sun on her skin but it’s too hot and she’s too cold, so she walks faster and the grass tickles her calves and sinks beneath her weight.

Then, Emori makes the realization that home must be real, because she recalls the look in John’s eyes as he tells her stories about his parents, about how his father taught him how to cook and his mother taught him how to spell. He was home then, in his little Skaikru apartment with his family, and he visits home through his memories, even if they hurt like hell. She had wanted to hug him as he took her to the home in his head, but she had instead wrapped her arms around her own shoulders and felt for him distantly. She was not welcome in this home- the door was locked and it was his and his alone. She could not bear his pain and he could not give her the familial love he himself had lost.

Emori has no memories of a home, just Otan and their cons and their recklessness. Just Baylis- pain and agony and choking and suffocating and she can’t remember how to breathe as it all floods back to her.

The sky turns black over the field and even though it’s not raining yet the ground below her is muddy and her feet are dirty with it, but she doesn’t care because she’s running now. As she feels the first drops of rain hit her face, she can’t differentiate them from her tears. Her knees sink into the mud as she falls to the ground, and for a split second she’s lying beneath the stars with her brother- but no, she’s not, she’s choking under Baylis’s grip on her neck but she looks up and Baylis isn’t there. Emori drops her head and rocks back and forth on her knees in the storm, and she thinks then that it might all be okay if someone was there with her, if she didn’t have to take it alone, if-

“Emori!”

Her eyes snapped open, and when she felt the weight of the cave floor against her back she let out a deep sigh. She can breathe again now, and she wasn’t alone.

_John._ A bolt of panic rushed through Emori’s spine as she hopped up from the spot in the cave where she was sleeping, which was marked by nothing more than a makeshift pillow from a stolen sack. What had happened for him to call for her this early? John was usually the one who begged for them to sleep later and stay in their cave all day, even though he knew they needed to hunt and eat. Something must be wrong, Emori decided with dread. 

Though she had shed her many layers of clothing to sleep, she never failed to keep a knife strapped securely to her thigh in case there was an attack during the night. She felt herself reaching for it now, praying to the stars above that no one had found them here- other thieves who wanted a share of what they’ve stole, guards from Polis who were searching for them to stop their crimes, even just a traveller could be wary enough to turn them in- but she was not naive and her fingertips grazed the cool handle as she walked.

The floor of the cave grew colder as Emori approached the opening until it eventually felt like ice on her feet and she thought perhaps she should have put on shoes, but John was too important. As if just to tease her, a biting gust of wind swept its way into the cave and assaulted her face and shoulders, making her painfully aware of how little clothing she was wearing. She made a note to herself to start wearing her layers to sleep.

_If you and John get out of this alive,_ she thought bitterly. 

_Where was John?_ This question didn’t go unanswered for long, because then she saw him, and she let out a long sigh of relief she hadn’t realized she was holding. 

Snow was cascading down from the sky and covering the ground and trees in a thick layer of white, some of it swirling through the frosty air and landing on her bare toes as she stepped onto the last meter of cave floor. Emori shuddered at the cold, but couldn’t find it in herself to pay attention to her own discomfort as her eyes focused themselves on the man in front of her.

John was spinning in the snow, kicking the layer on the ground with his boots and carefully picking globs of it up with his bare hands to form into balls and chuck at the nearest tree. He looked hypnotized, reveling in the frozen atmosphere as if it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but then he turned around and saw her, and with the way his already wonder glazed eyes lit up even brighter, she knew it wasn’t.

“It’s snowing!” he said excitedly, sprinting towards her to grab her hands in his and walk backwards with her into the snow. 

Her feet felt numb as they sunk into the snow, but his hands on hers and his bright smile at the sight of her made Emori feel more alive than she had in her life. Somehow, his hands were warm, and when he let go of her to once again relish in his surroundings she found herself missing the heat of them.

She brought her hands to her upper arms in an attempt to warm herself up, but it didn’t work very well so she just chuckled at his enthusiasm. “No snow in space, huh?” Emori joked as she watched him.

“No,” John laughed as he stuck his tongue out to catch a few snowflakes on it, seeming disappointed when they didn’t bear a taste but recovering quickly to smile at the flakes on his fingertips. “No, this is amazing. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you get this all the time.”

Emori laughed and released her hands from her arms to step closer to him, clearing a path in the snow with her unfeeling feet. “Not all the time. Just during the winter.”

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and she was shivering in the cold air but her face was heating up under his gaze. He frowned. “Oh my god,” John said as he regarded the ragged sleeveless shirt and ripped up shorts she was wearing. “Fuck, sorry. You must be freezing out here.”

And then he was taking off his jacket and she forgot how to breathe, but instinctively she held out her arms in protest and laughed again weakly. “I’m fine, John.” 

“Nonsense,” John scoffed, pushing the jacket sleeves around her objecting arms and shaking his head at her groan of disapproval. “You’re gonna catch a cold out here.”

“Catch a cold?” She repeated, still dazed from his gesture.

He paused, considering her confusion and then moved to the front of her to close the jacket, seeming to find the right words to say there. “Like, get sick I guess. I don’t know, I heard that in a movie once, I think. I just- you know, I just don’t want you to not feel well.”

She was barely listening to his explanation, could barely hear it over the sound of her pounding heart. The jacket was too big on her, but it was thick and warm and when he zipped the front up she felt a brief moment of pure safety for the first time since her brother died, and she found herself reveling in it. The moment faded quickly, but the smell of him on her and around her didn’t, and it felt more like armour on her body than the spiky red shoulder of the jacket did.

It wasn’t just the feeling of the jacket that overwhelmed her, though. It was the meaning behind the gesture, the kindness that no one has ever shown her before. The way he stumbled over his words when he justified it, but the words themselves struck her in the heart as well and she was suffocating again like in her dream, but it was different this time because when she looked up John was there and he was smiling proudly. 

“That’s very silly, John.” She said it quietly, but she was smiling now too, sheepishly staring at her feet in the snow. When Emori looked up at him again she thought for a second that he could read her mind because now he’s collecting her hands in his to pull her further away from the cave.

It wasn’t too long before this that he had convinced her to stop wearing her hand wrap when they were alone, so she slept with the worst part of her bared to the world. John wouldn’t allow her to say such things about it, though. He assured her that it was badass just like her, that it was a part of her story and she shouldn’t be ashamed of it. Emori had blushed under the weight of his worship, telling him she had to collect firewood and ran into the forest to gain her sense back. Now, there were snowflakes falling onto her badass hand and John wiped them off gently with his thumb. It terrified her.

Her feet and legs were still cold and numb, but her hands were so warm in his and her heart felt like it was unthawing from a one hundred year ice age under the weight of his jacket on her chest. She allowed herself to melt into the nice feeling of it, just this once.

The loss of his hands on hers tore her from her thoughts. When they stopped walking, she couldn’t see the cave anymore through the snow covered trees. It felt unsafe, and she was distinctly aware of how the snow on the ground was thicker in this area and it was touching her calves now just like the grass in her dream. She looked up and the sky was white, not blue, but it still felt like the calm before the storm and she tried to blink her thoughts away and refocus on the real world, but there was snow on her eyelashes and they stung when she squeezed her eyes shut and she wanted to run again, all the way to the back end of the cave where she was safe and surviving and-

A big glob of snow hit her in the side of the neck. Emori turned to see John doubled over in laughter, and his laugh was such a beautiful noise that she started laughing as well. She wouldn’t just let him get away with it, though. Forming a decent sized mass of snow in her hands into a ball, she threw it straight at him as hard as she could.

The snowball hit him square in the forehead, and for a brief moment Emori felt bad about throwing so hard, but then he was laughing again and shaping a new snowball into his hands and she was running behind a tree to make herself a new one, too. The next snowballs hit a tree, and then his chest, and then her shoulder, and then his ass, and he chased her down and got his revenge with a huge glob of snow being crushed right on the top of her head. 

Emori laughed, deep and genuine, and the feeling was foreign in her lungs, but it felt good. It was as if something that had been constricting her chest for eighteen years finally let go, and the air around her was piercing and raw, but she was breathing it in. She looked up once again and John was still there, also laughing, but doing something else as well. He was staring at her, studying the details of her face and her laugh as if she had brought the snow down from the sky herself. 

As his face settled back into a neutral but happy expression, Emori found that she was the one staring now. He smiled at her sheepishly and she allowed herself to study the expression just as he did hers. His lips looked rough and ample, his teeth bright and straight. His jaw was sharp and, for what seems like the first time since she’s known him, unclenched. She subconsciously stopped herself from reaching up and running her knuckles over it, instead opting to turn on her heels and wade her way through the soft snow, her back to him.

She couldn’t understand the feelings she was experiencing, she had never had them for anyone else before. Love is weakness, and she couldn’t afford to be weak. She had to survive- at all times, at all costs. She had loved her brother and he had loved her, too. Now, Otan is dead and Emori has nothing left to hold onto, no one left to love.

_Except John._

Loving John Murphy would go one of two ways: she would put her faith in him. It would be the first time in her life she put faith in someone just because they made her feel some kind of way. Love was an all or nothing game, so she would give him all she has, all she is- give him all her love. 

And he would betray her. Skaikru would want him again, realize how special he and his mind are and they would invite him back with open arms. He would go, because he misses consistent food and technology and Skaikru girls with eyes filled with stars just like his. Or maybe he would go to Polis alone, tell her they can find real food there because John misses real food. He would meet a girl there, a warrior perhaps, with strong eyes, ones without damage and pain that could take care of him in his hard times the way that she couldn’t. 

The second way is the one she is more afraid of: she would hurt him. Perhaps loving her was a death sentence, and that was what had happened to her brother, but it was even more than that. She would fall too deep, she would become reckless with love and hope and she would forget what it means to survive. He would pay the price for it, because she’s selfish and she would run from danger and he would protect her because he loves her, but her love for him would be overshadowed by her self preservation. Or perhaps she would get scared- she would be afraid of someone loving her so deeply, the way she can’t love herself, and she would push him and his love away. She would make him realize what a monster, what a frikdreina, she is and he would run as far and as fast as he can. 

Briefly, Emori remembered her dream. Home. Something she was never meant to have. Her birthright was to die, and every single day she works to survive, just to prove them wrong, just to prove that she can. Survivors couldn’t have homes, Emori thought bitterly. Home isn’t something that can follow you, and survivors had to run. Survivors had to run until the air left their lungs and they choked on insults from others and the chains weighing them down and their very own fears. This was always to be Emori’s fate.

_But John is a survivor, too. ___

__She distracts herself from her tormenting fantasies by tracing her good hand down the trunk of a frost covered tree. The tips of her fingers trembled from the cold, but his heavy gaze on her back is what really caused goosebumps to assault her spine. Unwilling to crack under the tenderness of his stare, Emori finds herself talking to cut the tense air between them._ _

__“Otan loved snow. He used to say it was a gift for us from the sky.”_ _

__She crushed the painful memories of her brother under the frozen leaves beneath her feet and twirled around to face John, a surge of newfound confidence rushing through her veins. Sunlight poked through the branches of the snow covered trees and illuminated his glowing blue eyes as if they were stairways to heaven itself. She took a step closer to him, testing the ungrateful luck the universe had given her today. He remained still, but Emori caught him stealing a quick glance at her lips._ _

__“I don’t believe that anymore, though.” She was closer to him now. Her bare feet nearly touched the enclosed toes of his boots and she could feel his presence in her space as if there was a warm spirit floating around him. His jacket felt heavy on her shoulders._ _

__John met her eyes. “No?” he questioned teasingly. It was his turn to step closer now, just a little, just so that their body heat mingled in the bitter, frozen air. He was taller than her, and when he looked down at her a floppy piece of his hair fell in front of his eye and brushed his nose. Emori resisted the urge to reach up and push it out of the way._ _

__“No,” she repeated, reverting her eyes from his only to focus them on his lips for half a second. When she met his gaze again, she was sure the deeps of his eyes could melt the snow under their feet. “The sky brought me a new gift.”_ _

__It was only for a split second that the air around them hung heavy with her confession, because then he was closing the gap between their lips and Emori felt like she was floating. His lips were as warm as his hands on her cheeks, and they cut through the bitterness of the snow swirling around them and sent a wave of comfort all the way down to her numb toes. Her own hands were at his waist and she pushed back at the soft kiss as much as she could, hoping it would communicate the feelings she was too scared to say, too scared to accept. When the air in their lungs ran short and they broke apart to breathe, his smile was brighter than the sun hitting the white snow and his hands wiped the stray snowflakes off of her cheeks and eyelashes. She leaned into the warmth of his hands and closed her eyes against the weight of his forehead touching hers, feeling completely safe._ _

__And she waited. She stood there, wrapped up in the blanket of his body heat and the smell of earth on this pristine boy from the sky, and waited for the other shoe to drop. Waited for him to recognize the weight of her hand on his waist and scoff in disgust at the idea of loving a frikdreina. Waited for the snow under her feet to become muddy with rain from a black sky. Waited for the sky itself to come down and take back it’s most beautiful creation, her gift._ _

__Nothing happened. So she smiled at her luck and opened her eyes briefly to pull his lips back to hers in a deep, assuring kiss._ _

__A few minutes later, they walk back to their cave with her badass hand in his, and she feels lightheaded and blissful. Upon entrance, Emori sighed at the contrasting warmth inside their haven and started a fire for them as he sorted through their haul from the day before._ _

__She puts on a few more of her layers, but she keeps his jacket around her shoulders as she cuddles up against him in front of the fire. John had wrapped himself up in one of the furs they had stolen from a traveler, and he stroked her hair as he giddily told her about the snow he had seen in a movie he used to watch with his dad._ _

__He was home again, she realized. Even after the rush of their morning in the snow, he still returned home to his long gone family when the thrill settled. Emori tried to suppress her sadness at the thought, it wasn’t fair for her to wish that he gives up those memories for her, no matter how painful it was to hear them. She had no happy memories of her and her brother, just sad ones that she wished she could erase. John was all she had, but she could never be all he had. He had already had so much, she could never even think to compare to it._ _

__“It was nothing like today, though.”_ _

__Her attention snapped back to John’s voice in her hair, and she stumbled in her mind to find what he meant. “What?”_ _

__“The snow…” He brushed the hair out of her face to look in her eyes. “Snow looks all cool in movies, yeah, but I didn’t know it could make you, like, feel that way, you know? I don’t know… I guess I just kinda realized that it wasn’t really the snow that made me feel that way?”_ _

__Emori shifted to get a better look at his face. He was glowing in the firelight, his hair shimmering orange with the reflection of the flames. He was beautiful. “Feel… what way?” She asked tentatively._ _

__John flushed. “I don’t know, it’s stupid, I mean- you’re gonna think I’m cheesy, like those guys in the movies-”_ _

__“I’ve never seen a movie.” She laughed._ _

__He shared her laugh sheepishly and pulled her back to her original position, laying at his chest. “I guess it just felt kinda magical. And at first I thought it was just the excitement of the snow or whatever… but then you said that thing about the gift… and our kiss… I mean I guess I just think… it’s you.”_ _

__Emori was more frozen in that moment than she had been standing barefoot in the snow. She turned her head to face him once again, and this time when his hair fell in front of his nose as he looked down at her, she pushed it away. This time, their kiss was heavier, weighed down by newly discovered emotions and blissful proximity to each other._ _

__“I feel the same way.” She said against his lips when they broke apart, even though she had already poured that message into the kiss. She needed him to know exactly what it meant to her._ _

__The silence afterwards was natural, euphoric even. Emori snuggled as close to John as she could, relishing in the warmth of his body more than the warmth of the fire lighting up their starry-eyed faces._ _

__It was then that she thought maybe home was something that could be carried with you. Maybe home didn’t have to be a comfortable house in a village, or an apartment in the sky with a loving family that you could come back to. Maybe a home could survive with you, run with you, fall with you, and get back up with you. Maybe John Murphy could be her home._ _

__When Emori drifted to sleep that night in his arms, she dreamt of running through the forest with her lover, of kissing him after a good con, of laying with him in their cave, just as she was now._ _

_And when she woke up, she was home._

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I hope you enjoyed it :D  
> Please feel free to leave a comment if you liked it, once again this is my first ever fic and I’m an aspiring writer so it would mean the world to me. Also, my twitter is @/hizziesmemori if you wanna follow me there :)
> 
> -Sarah


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